How the Middle East Conflict Impacts US and European Consumers

Renewed conflict in the Middle East is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis, creating fear, disruption, and loss for people across the region and beyond.

But for consumers thousands of miles away, the conflict also lands in a very familiar place: the everyday economy. When global uncertainty rises, households tend to ask the same practical questions: Will prices go up? Will essentials get more expensive? Should I change how I spend?

This blog looks at how and why events in the Gulf can filter through to consumers in the US and Europe, what that means for sentiment and spending behaviour, and what Mintel’s outlook is as this situation evolves.

If you want to understand how conflict in the Gulf can affect consumers, you don’t start with supermarket shelves, you start with shipping lanes.

The Strait of Hormuz is essential to the flow of oil and gas exports from the Gulf: 20 million barrels of oil pass through the strait each day, representing around 20% of global supply. When that kind of volume is exposed to heightened risk, markets react, and global prices increase, and ultimately, consumers feel it most clearly through energy costs.

More expensive energy raises manufacturing costs and transport costs, and those pressures can ripple outward into broader pricing. However, do not assume a repeat of earlier crises. Some of the immediate reaction is the same, including immediate increased prices for gas, oil, and fertiliser due to the importance of the region in extraction and production. However, this is unlikely to be a repeat of the impact we saw from the Ukraine conflict: Iran’s trade footprint is more limited in Western economies, and as things stand, the primary channel of impact is energy and supply-chain disruption rather than a sweeping, permanent, reworking of supply chains.

Households are likely to feel nervous about their own bills, and about what more expensive energy does across the economy, at a time in the US and Europe where inflation has just started to consistently trend downward. In other words, energy is not just a line item; it’s a signal that can reset consumer expectations.

Conflict increases uncertainty. Uncertainty raises the risk of disruption. Disruption puts energy and supply chains in the spotlight. And once energy becomes a household worry again, confidence can wobble.

One of the clearest common traits across the US and Europe is exhaustion. Consumers have lived through a stream of overlapping shocks, and that repetition changes how people interpret new headlines.

European consumers are well-equipped to navigate economic fallout, largely because they’ve had to develop budget-stretching behaviours over several years. At the same time, a disconnect remains between macro indicators and consumer perceptions: many still feel like they’re in a cost-of-living crisis mindset even as inflation falls.

Crucially, though, most are getting by and heading into this latest period of instability, often “surviving, not thriving” – but with enough wriggle room to make choices. Confidence varies across the continent: the UK stands out as more confident in personal finances than most of its European peers, but confidence can be volatile and susceptible to knee‑jerk responses to current events.

Europeans also have heightened sensitivity to supply chain disruption. Consumers can find supply chains abstract in normal times, but concern rises when media attention increases and when price or availability changes become visible.

In the US, consumer sentiment is strongly shaped by inequality in financial resilience. Financial stability differs dramatically, and the gap between the “haves” and “have‑nots” is expanding.

This matters because it explains why broad improvements, like easing inflation, don’t automatically lift optimism: many lower- and middle-income households are still carrying significant strain, so relief doesn’t feel like relief. As the conflict adds geopolitical anxiety, it doesn’t replace financial worries; it simply stacks on top of them.

Consumers in both territories as well‑versed in caution by now. When households feel uncertain, behaviour tends to follow a well‑worn path: delay non-essentials, trade down, search harder for deals, and prioritise the basics.

In Europe, value-focused spending is long entrenched, and consumers have a robust set of budget-stretching behaviours ready to deploy if inflation ticks up again. In the US, price-sensitive behaviours are expected to deepen as rising gas prices and renewed inflationary pressures take hold.

In Europe, localism and wellbeing have emerged as key coping responses when the global system feels fragile. Following trade uncertainty triggered by tariffs in 2025, European consumers embraced localism, both to support local workers/economy and to secure access to goods. If shipping lanes reroute and delays rise, local provenance becomes more than a nice-to-have claim; it starts to feel like a form of reassurance.

Consumers in Europe have learnt to deal with ‘the polycrisis period’ financially better than psychologically, and new anxieties can increase demand for products and services that help people switch off from the concerns of the wider world.

In the US, as price pressures rise, financially tight households are hit first and hardest, but even financially healthy consumers are increasingly price-alert and becoming less loyal. This creates a two-speed market:

Some crisis behaviours, like stockpiling, spike and then revert, but value-seeking and financial caution tend to persist longer, especially when crises stack. Consumers are entering yet another period of uncertainty, making a full psychological return to “normal” increasingly difficult.

Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is the critical determinant of how far and how fast the economic fallout spreads. A short conflict with minimal escalation will, to a degree, insulate the shock to consumers. But a longer conflict will create significant disruption, putting pressure on manufacturing and the ability for companies to absorb additional costs, heightening the inflation risk.

The takeaway is: energy is the lever, and uncertainty around energy is what keeps consumers cautious even if the news cycle moves on.

We are not in a clean-slate moment. Consumers are carrying the residue of previous shocks, and that residue changes how they respond now. Consumers in Europe face an ever-lengthening consumer recovery, where households retain cautious, value-focused spending habits. In the US this most recent conflict will entrench worst‑case mindsets and defensive routines that can outlast the crisis itself.

The behaviour changes that matter most: deal seeking, switching, and prioritising essentials – are already embedded, and volatility gives consumers a reason to keep using them.

Across both markets, brands win by reducing uncertainty and making value easy to recognise.